March 20, 2013 - Ignore whatever white stuff may linger outside. The sun is finished with its trip south and is finally heading back this way.

Today is the first day of spring.

I keep my house cold in an effort to save a bit on utilities, so I'm looking forward to some warmth in the place.

Clarkston Optimists had a good winter season with their ice rink in Depot Park. It had actual ice this year, with skaters and everything, instead of a slushy pond like they had last year. But it's time to put that thing away.

Our annual Progress edition is in this week's paper. Published about this time every year, it's an annual milestone – holidays, New Year's predictions, then Progress.

Things seem to be looking up, hopefully. Last week's paper had something I haven't seen in a while – a subdivision development story. Those were common a few years ago, now not so much.

Winter went fast. I think I only had to shovel my driveway twice the whole season. My next door neighbor clears it with his Jeep plow if the snow gets deep. He's a good neighbor.

I'm still paranoid about driving in snow and ice. It feels as if my back wheels are going to slide out from under me at any moment. That's because they did about this time two years ago during a spring snowfall, when I spun out on I-69 and totalled my car.

As usual, it feels like Christmas just ended and now it's time for Easter.

Hopefully this year's Easter will be a bit less stressful than the last one. I returned from Easter services, the late one on Saturday night, to find my cat with a gash in his side. He was the victim of some inter-cat violence of some sort.

I took him to the animal emergency room. It cost a bit and he's old, but I decided not to have my cat put down on Easter morning. It took a bunch of stitches and a few weeks of healing, all in the cone of shame, but he got better and has been fine the whole rest of the year.

And now with the snow going or gone, I suppose I'll have to do something about those leaves I left on the lawn last fall. Didn't get around to raking them at the time. And then there's the whole "spring cleaning" thing.